第46章

And it was also the human, natural protest against the inevitable, the irrevocable; the spasm of revolt under the sting of death, the rebellion of the soul at the victory of the grave.

"He can give her back to me if He only will," Vanamee cried.

"Sarria, you must help me.I tell you--I warn you, sir, I can't last much longer under it.My head is all wrong with it--I've no more hold on my mind.Something must happen or I shall lose my senses.I am breaking down under it all, my body and my mind alike.Bring her to me; make God show her to me.If all tales are true, it would not be the first time.If I cannot have her, at least let me see her as she was, real, earthly, not her spirit, her ghost.I want her real self, undefiled again.If this is dementia, then let me be demented.But help me, you and your God; create the delusion, do the miracle.""Stop!" cried the priest again, shaking him roughly by the shoulder."Stop.Be yourself.This is dementia; but I shall NOT let you be demented.Think of what you are saying.Bring her back to you! Is that the way of God? I thought you were a man; this is the talk of a weak-minded girl."Vanamee stirred abruptly in his place, drawing a long breath and looking about him vaguely, as if he came to himself.

"You are right," he muttered."I hardly know what I am saying at times.But there are moments when my whole mind and soul seem to rise up in rebellion against what has happened; when it seems to me that I am stronger than death, and that if I only knew how to use the strength of my will, concentrate my power of thought--volition--that I could--I don't know--not call her back--but--something----"

"A diseased and distorted mind is capable of hallucinations, if that is what you mean," observed Sarria.

"Perhaps that is what I mean.Perhaps I want only the delusion, after all."Sarria did not reply, and there was a long silence.In the damp south corners of the walls a frog began to croak at exact intervals.The little fountain rippled monotonously, and a magnolia flower dropped from one of the trees, falling straight as a plummet through the motionless air, and settling upon the gravelled walk with a faint rustling sound.Otherwise the stillness was profound.

A little later, the priest's cigar, long since out, slipped from his fingers to the ground.He began to nod gently.Vanamee touched his arm.

"Asleep, sir?"

The other started, rubbing his eyes.

"Upon my word, I believe I was."

"Better go to bed, sir.I am not tired.I think I shall sit out here a little longer.""Well, perhaps I would be better off in bed.YOUR bed is always ready for you here whenever you want to use it.""No--I shall go back to Quien Sabe--later.Good-night, sir.""Good-night, my boy."

Vanamee was left alone.For a long time he sat motionless in his place, his elbows on his knees, his chin propped in his hands.

The minutes passed--then the hours.The moon climbed steadily higher among the stars.Vanamee rolled and smoked cigarette after cigarette, the blue haze of smoke hanging motionless above his head, or drifting in slowly weaving filaments across the open spaces of the garden.

But the influence of the old enclosure, this corner of romance and mystery, this isolated garden of dreams, savouring of the past, with its legends, its graves, its crumbling sun dial, its fountain with its rime of moss, was not to be resisted.Now that the priest had left him, the same exaltation of spirit that had seized upon Vanamee earlier in the evening, by degrees grew big again in his mind and imagination.His sorrow assaulted him like the flagellations of a fine whiplash, and his love for Angele rose again in his heart, it seemed to him never so deep, so tender, so infinitely strong.No doubt, it was his familiarity with the Mission garden, his clear-cut remembrance of it, as it was in the days when he had met Angele there, tallying now so exactly with the reality there under his eyes, that brought her to his imagination so vividly.As yet he dared not trust himself near her grave, but, for the moment, he rose and, his hands clasped behind him, walked slowly from point to point amid the tiny gravelled walks, recalling the incidents of eighteen years ago.On the bench he had quitted he and Angele had often sat.

Here by the crumbling sun dial, he recalled the night when he had kissed her for the first time.Here, again, by the rim of the fountain, with its fringe of green, she once had paused, and, baring her arm to the shoulder, had thrust it deep into the water, and then withdrawing it, had given it to him to kiss, all wet and cool; and here, at last, under the shadow of the pear trees they had sat, evening after evening, looking off over the little valley below them, watching the night build itself, dome-like, from horizon to zenith.

Brusquely Vanamee turned away from the prospect.The Seed ranch was dark at this time of the year, and flowerless.Far off toward its centre, he had caught a brief glimpse of the house where Angele had lived, and a faint light burning in its window.

But he turned from it sharply.The deep-seated travail of his grief abruptly reached the paroxysm.With long strides he crossed the garden and reentered the Mission church itself, plunging into the coolness of its atmosphere as into a bath.

What he searched for he did not know, or, rather, did not define.

He knew only that he was suffering, that a longing for Angele, for some object around which his great love could enfold itself, was tearing at his heart with iron teeth.He was ready to be deluded; craved the hallucination; begged pitifully for the illusion; anything rather than the empty, tenantless night, the voiceless silence, the vast loneliness of the overspanning arc of the heavens.

Before the chancel rail of the altar, under the sanctuary lamp, Vanamee sank upon his knees, his arms folded upon the rail, his head bowed down upon them.He prayed, with what words he could not say for what he did not understand--for help, merely, for relief, for an Answer to his cry.